... illusions” are giving way to more down-to-earth approaches. Many Arab political analysts wonder whether “we are ready for democracy” and what development model may take root in the Arab East. All known regional models – Egyptian, Turkish, Saudi, Iranian – have been discredited. “Political Islam”, at the current stage, has failed and is in a state of critical self-analysis, even though it cannot be disregarded altogether. Advancement along the path of liberal democracy seems unlikely, especially ...
...
This is essentially the answer to the question of whether an outside force has provoked the Iraqi protests. The United States, Iran and several neighbouring Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, definitely have leverage over Iraq. Still, this leverage ... ... mounting the protests.
From this point on, there are significant differences between the events in Iraq and the events of the Arab Spring. First, while many of the youth activists in Tunisia and Egypt had undergone preliminary training (in Serbia, for ...
... Black Sea area and in the Northern and Southern Caucasus, in trade and investment, in energy and in tourism. The second was Iran — another difficult ally, which played an active role in many international matters very important to Moscow — from civil ... ... nations like Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.
The relative stability of the region started to crumble in the wake of the Arab Spring. The changing situation presented Moscow both new challenges and new opportunities. On the one hand, the Kremlin had ...
... myopic side, you have Putin thinking that risking the ire of almost all the Sunni governments, Sunni people, and Sunni jihadists by helping Shiite Alawite Assad massacre mainly Sunni rebels and civilians with the help of Shiite Hezbollah and Shiite Iran just for Russia's having a naval base on Syria’s coast and a few new bases inside Syria as well as a client in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who accounts for roughly 10% of global Russian arms sales is worth it (oh, and there’s ...
... been the Assad regime: though secular in ideology (Ba'athist), it is headed by Arab Alawite (a sect of Shiite Islam that is a small minority in Syria) Bashar al-Assad and is controlled mainly by Alawate Shiites. It is backed by Shiite Persian Iranians and the Arab Shiite Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Sunni Muslims, in general, do not like Shiites, and that is an understatement; many Sunnis do not even consider Shiites to be Muslims. That is why so much money from rich Gulf countries like Saudi ...
... so they could change the system and have more freedom. They were inspired by their Arab brethren in the happier days of the Arab Spring in 2011. This was, generally, a struggle for freedom, representation, human rights, and democracy in a country ruled ... ... Qaddafi’s regime, Assad’s military was much stronger and, unlike Qaddafi’s, had strong patrons in Russia and Iran who would complicate and increase the costs of any Western intervention and made the prospects of any success for the Syrian ...
... myriad of American industries and business operating in and investing in the region.
2.) America’s involvement in the Arab Spring will likely remain limited.
Even in situations like in Egypt, for many years one of the top recipients of U.S. foreign ... ... into being an apartheid-like political pariah within the Western world.
4.) There’s a good chance for a thaw/deal with Iran in the near future.
More than any president since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Obama has shown an energy and a willingness ...
...
National Transitional Council
.
The same scenario was meant for Damascus, whose membership was suspended after the domestic
conflict erupted
. Saudi Arabia and Qatar became key sponsors of the armed Syrian opposition in order to detach Syria from Iran’s orbit.
Hence, during phase one of the Arab Spring, the LAS served as the trumpeter of Riyadh and Doha’s interests in engaging the international community into toppling the Libyan and Syrian governments.
The general replacement of past Arab regimes with Islamist forces appears to indicate ...
... other Arab states. Until the protests in Deraa, Syria’s southwest, broke out, Bashar al-Assad had been convinced that the Arab spring’s revolutionary momentum would not spill into Syria. The regime seemed to have learned from other Arab dictators’ ... ... civil war.
As the violence in Syria escalated, a regional conflict morphed into an issue of international concern. Russia, Iran, Lebanon’s militia group Hizbullah, and China backed the Assad regime. The so-called “Friends of Syria,” ...
